Posted by Ryan Sands, Google Book Search Support Team and Google Patent Search Support Specialist

Using much of the familiar technology that you've come to love for browsing books on Google Book Search, you can now search the full text of the U.S. patent corpus -- from early 18th century patents to recent ones from 2006 -- with Google Patent Search. History buffs will have a blast investigating Henry Ford's motor patents, and genealogists might just enjoy trying to find patents assigned to long lost relatives. Personally, I loved poring over a groundbreaking method for inducing hypnosis, as well as this 1920s hairnet and this 1960s "display device" (aka lava lamp).